Tinnitus What Is It

Understand What Tinnitus Really Is and How To Overcome It

Monthly Archives: April 2012

Hearing Noises In Ears – Tinnitus Suffering and Emotional Brain

Hearing Noises In Ears

Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience at New York University proposes that, "anxiety disorders come about when the fear system breaks loose from the cortical controls that usually keep the primitive impulses – the wild things in us, at bay…"

 

"Anxiety," he says, "is the result of traumatic learning experiences. Since traumatic learning involves, at least in part, fear conditioning, it is possible that similar brain mechanisms contribute to pathogenic anxiety in humans…" This proposition is useful in understanding the powerful link between tinnitus and emotions. Continue reading →

Ear Infection And Ringing In The Ear – Noise and Negative Emotions

Ear Infection And Ringing In The Ear

"Negative emotions" such as fear, depression, and anxiety are paired with the sound of tinnitus for most tinnitus sufferers. Whether the individual experienced these emotions prior to the "onset" of tinnitus, is not critical to volume reduction. It is vital to understand how tinnitus and negative emotions are paired in the brain, so we can unhook them once and for all.

 

If we hope to "re-wire" the brain, we must know where and how to do the wiring. Therefore, we need to consider exactly what happens when we "hear" tinnitus. Once we understand how tinnitus is heard, then we can begin our job discovering what will help most people gain significant relief from the incessant noises. Continue reading →

High Pitch Ringing In Ears – Roles To Relief From Tinnitus

High Pitch Ringing In Ears

For many people with tinnitus, negative emotional experiences play a pivotal role in onset, suffering, and later, relief from tinnitus. Severe tinnitus challenges the emotional stability of even the most resilient individual. Tinnitus is far more than a simple hearing disorder. Tinnitus is a complex intermingling of deficient brain chemistry, phantom auditory perception, cell receptor damage, and/or negative emotional experiences (among other variables). Tinnitus sounds may be similar from person to person, but the cause, onset, volume, and experience of that tinnitus can be very different. One modality of reducing tinnitus may work for some but it is becoming clear that a multi-modal approach to tinnitus reduction is indicated for most individuals.

 

Stress, depression, panic disorder, and anxiety are like fertilized soil for a farmer. The farmer planting the crops can be likened to the physical stimulus that causes the tinnitus and makes it persist (grow), while in most people, without the fertile soil, it only lasts a period of time. Once the tinnitus is "planted" in the brain of stressed or depressed individuals, it grows and soon plateaus in volume. Continue reading →

Whistling In Ear – Tinnitus And Your Emotional Brain

Whistling In Ear

Tinnitus, "the noise," is running through your brain on hundreds of highways called neural pathways. These neural pathways may be visualized as roads between brain cells. The "intersections" in the brain's highways are called synapses.

 

These intersections do not actually touch each other. The open space between the cell arms is called the synapse. The highways are made up of axons and dendrites. (It's not necessary that you know this, but it's interesting.). Information is sent from one cell to another via a neurotransmitter, much like a cellular phone call; and wires do not connect the "phones". We'll talk a little more about these neurons and neurotransmitters in a moment. Continue reading →

Ear Humming Noise – Subdivide Your Healing Goals

Ear Humming Noise

In most cases we can reduce the volume of the tinnitus, and in some cases we can eliminate it completely. "Persistent" improvement in volume reduction is a mid- to long-term task, however. We can begin the process of healing by maintaining patience and the realization that it will take time to go from the experience of; "this noise is driving me insane" to "this noise is annoying." This is a giant step to accomplish and it is not as easy as saying, "Learn to live with it," Healing will require a realistic expectation that you will experience bad days after beginning therapy; and that in the long term, you will improve your situation.

 

It should be obvious by now that a person who experienced SPADE (stress, panic disorder, anxiety, depression, and/or emotional problems) before the onset of tinnitus will find it more difficult to cognitively put a "positive spin" on tinnitus, once onset has occurred. A person who was very happy before the tinnitus onset will find tinnitus reduction an easier process, on average, than a person who was depressed or suffered from panic or anxiety disorders. Continue reading →